Johnny Sexton on his former teammate who ‘annoyed’ him with punditry comments

The Leinster legend retired last year after making 118 appearances for Ireland.

The former Ireland captain retired after the Rugby World Cup in France last year, having led his country to four Six Nations titles across his career.

Earlier this week, Sexton spoke with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning on the Free State podcast and opened up about the difficulty of receiving criticism from ex-teammates as a player.

While the 39-year-old admitted that he never fell out with former teammates over negative comments they made about him as pundits, he firmly believes he wouldn't do the same if he was talking about players he played with in the media.

Sexton referenced one particular occasion when Brian O'Driscoll commented on his conduct as captain during a 2020 Six Nations clash with France.

Speaking on Off The Ball, O'Driscoll said: "I thought that Johnny Sexton played a good game considering the lofty expectations we have of him.

"That said, I don’t think it is visually a good thing to have your captain coming off and shaking his head the way he did," he added.

"I’m sure he’s regretful of that and I hope he had a quiet word with his coach and apologises, which Johnny Sexton has had trouble doing in the past!

"Visually, for the rest of the team and for Ross Byrne looking up at the big screen – it was this prolonged, visual of him looking up at the coach’s box and shaking his head – as captain, you can’t do that.

"You have to be able to park your own disappointment and move on, to let the next guy come in and shake things up."

Sexton told Brolly and Fanning:

"Their criticism wasn't scathing but it annoyed me because if my brother was on TV or my dad, guys that are loyal to me, and it was put to them 'look at this'. They would have said 'what's the problem? He's just shook his head'.

"I can't even remember the exact words but it wasn't how you would want a friend to (describe it)," he continued.

"Maybe it was wishful thinking as in maybe I expected too much of them because it was clearly wrong, but what I'm trying to get at is when I rang my brother and my dad they said 'don't worry about it, all you did was shake your head and it's not that big a deal'.

"I rang Andy after and I apologised. As I was coming off I looked at the screen to check the time because I was like how long is left here and there was 12 minutes and it was when I saw there was 12 minutes, we were only eight points down, it didn't make sense to me.

"It hadn't happened to me, I was captain, I shouldn't have done it but I didn't mean to do it."

The Dublin native added that if he was doing punditry he still thinks that he would have a loyalty to players that he played with.

"I think I would and that would probably make me maybe a bad pundit because I would protect," he said.

"I would say 'Well hold on a second, he's a fiery character, he doesn't want to come off the pitch, what do you want him to be delighted to come off?'

"Maybe not fully protect, but maybe just give an alter, rather than just throwing fuel on the fire."